2019 Volume 59 Issue 3 Pages 524-530
A novel quantitative characterization method of MnS distribution was proposed based on the data from automatic inclusions analysis software to evaluate their effects on intragranular polygonal ferrite (IPF) formation in medium carbon non-quenched and tempered steels. The results show that agminated MnS inclusions in the steel are less effective to promote the IPF formation and lots of inclusions are actually wasteful because their space distances are too small to act as nucleation sites individually, even their number is larger than that in the steel with plentiful uniformly distributed MnS inclusions. Due to the difference of observation method, three-dimensional dendritic MnS inclusions would be revealed as several agminated small-sized ones in two-dimensional observation. In order to avoid misunderstanding, the characteristics of the nearest space distances between inclusions in widely used two-dimensional observation could be applied to recognize and define these agminated MnS inclusions to more accurately evaluate their effects on IPF formation.
